CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I don’t know the words. I only remember the feeling.
I’ve never done anything like this. Not since I was a kid and I used to make stuff up on the spot to amuse my cousins. Back then, it was a matter of trying to spit out lyrics a heartbeat ahead of the accompaniment, and most of what came out was immature and crude because we were boys with nothing better to do. But this is different, and these lyrics — just as impromptu — have to work. They must mean something.
I stare into the place I haven’t wanted to look. From the stage, I open my inner eyes and look to Grace. I ask her for permission. And it’s Grace, not me, who tells me what to say.
I haven’t played this hook since Abigail put words to it. That part of the song, I remember, along with most of her chorus. I use what I have, keep my fingers moving — right on the frets, left strumming the strings — and listen closely to keep up.
I think I’ll falter, but the story comes.
I see Abigail in the crowd, near the bar. After the first few notes, she looks up, and her expression almost breaks me. It’s so fragile, so wounded. I was cruel to leave her today, but I just couldn’t follow. I knew what I needed to say but couldn’t move my feet. After all this time, I only had that last bit of reticence. By the time it washed away and I found my tongue, she’d gone.
The first verse tells the story of a boy and a girl who fall in love. Who meet tragedy. And how much it hurts.
I play the chorus. I play the hook. Abigail watches me. She looks like she can’t believe her ears. Like she can’t believe I’m singing, let alone singing this. The crowd seems much the same; the Overlook has never heard me sing when the doors have officially been open. I have no idea if I’m doing well or horribly. I have no idea if Chloe, backstage, is watching this and regretting giving me her slot. I might be tripping all over myself. Even if I rhyme, I might be a big, fat cliché. This might all sound pathetic, a joke, like the music I’ve repeatedly trashed on countless mornings after waking alone.
The second verse tells how the boy’s world ends along with the girl’s. How he tries to face the world and can’t. How it’s all pointless. How every day is another floor on an endless downward spiral.
I don’t know the words, so I watch Abigail, who wrote their earlier version. The words that cut too deeply, and made me want to bury them. Words that were, I’ve realized, a bit too true. Words I didn’t want to believe, and that I didn’t want to admit had been written long before Abigail sang them. Words that I’d written the first go-round, baking them into the melody itself.
How did I miss it? From the first notes, this song was always sad. A rebirth song. About moving on. Of course I wrote it first, and Abigail merely plucked meaning from what I played. But in the end, she wrote it, too. Because it’s no coincidence that the first notes came only after we met.
Inside my mind, Grace whispers the words. I don’t want to sing them, but the melody is a train, and I can’t stop it now that it’s going. I can’t abandon the boy in his desperation. I can’t surrender now, even if I want to. I’ve gone too far. I’m at the bottom of the loop, and now there’s nowhere to go but back up. To the start.
The third verse is about a new girl. A new love. And about moving on, sweet on the tongue to soften the bitter.
Chorus.
Coda.
And ending.
I want to slink away when it’s over. I’ve done something horrible, something I shouldn’t have done. I’m supposed to play the rest of a set, but I can’t. I’m spent. I have nothing left, all my energy wasted on embarrassing myself. I can’t raise my head, even though I should, because the crowd is clapping, standing, giving me the first standing ovation I think I’ve ever seen here.
But still, despite the crowd’s patronizing, I don’t want to look up. Because I can’t. I’m falling apart in front of an audience. Grace is here, too, mic in hand. Charlie’s on bass. Everyone is staring, watching this pathetic display, seeing only me and having no idea what’s just happened, what this has cost me.
I finally look up, and even through the crowd, I see the place where Abigail was standing. And she’s gone. Run off. Because I’m a fool, now at least half a dozen times over.
Chloe is beside me; her hand is tender on my back. Softly she says, “It will get easier from here.”
I stand from my stool. Slowly. Pathetically. I had no idea how weak I was, but now I see. I can barely walk. But this frailty isn’t new. I’ve been this weak all along, and all I’ve lost is farce.
Now these people, in the crowd, see me for who Gavin Adams truly is. The man I’ve been for years.
Freddy takes me over, like a ward, as Chloe reshuffles onstage. As if she knew she’d need to take over from the start. As if it was always obvious, when I asked for her slot, that I’d fail her, fail Danny, fail everyone. The way I always have, always do, and always will.
Freddy guides me into a corner, where I won’t bother anyone with my breakdown.
But the corner isn’t empty. Abigail is there, and her face is somewhere between happy and sad.
She wraps her arms around me and says something curious, whispering into my ear. Something I understand, even though it makes no sense in the context of what’s happened, what’s happening, and what’s already been said and left unspoken.
“I’m sorry, too,” she tells me.
She kisses me.
The crowd, behind us, applauds as Chloe takes the stage.
But they’re not applauding for Chloe.
As we pull apart, the sweetest, most adorable, most wrenchingly bashful smile breaks onto Abigail’s lips. It’s a hidden smile that won’t stay a secret. A private moment of glee that refuses to stay below the surface. It’s something so pure and honest, it strikes like the break of dawn after winter’s longest night.
They’re applauding for us.
For me. And for Abigail.
And, after our song, for the promise of new beginnings.